Worked in USA, Canada, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Venezuela, Nicaragua, UAE, Morocco, Iraq, Nigeria, South Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines, India -- and all of them full of good people. Still working, now back in the USA.
Weekends are usually biking, kayaking, or hiking. It's "urban hiking" in the hidden areas everyone else drives past.
I follow #hiking and #kayaking, so even if it looks like I'm not following you... I'm following you ;)
I usually post a couple times a week.
| Web | http://ericphelps.com/ |
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I took my friend Gary Geddes on a hike to one of my favorite areas a couple weeks ago. He just sent me these two pictures. He managed to convert mundane into magical.
https://garygeddes.pixels.com/
https://www.instagram.com/garylandscapes/
Picked out a nice 6 mile hike (which was 7 miles, I suck at estimating).
Very happy my knee held up. I think I know the secret now: If you walk on a paved trail, you swing your foot and come down on your heel. That sends a shock up your leg. But when you're on an uneven dirt trail (and wearing microspikes!) you pick your feet up and place them down flat. Way less stress on the knee.
Which is why my plan for today was a 100% dirt trail. And it worked.
I know our local bald eagles relocated after their tree fell over, but I didn't know where they were. Yesterday I got a glimpse of the eagles, so today I was on a mission. Turned out to be really easy. With just a basic idea of the location, I was able to identify their tree right away. It's the tall tree on the other side of the pond.
I had lots of bushwhacking and hill climbing and sketchy slopes, but I identified two different safe viewing locations if I want to take a friend.
Bored at a garden club party. How fast is that airplane flying? If it's 6 miles high at 45 degrees it's about 8.5 miles away.
Three fingers together at arm's length is a 10:1 ratio. So the fingers cover about 0.85 miles. Ah, but the plane is flying at 45 degrees to me, so it has to travel 0.85 * √2 = 1.2 miles to cross my fingers.
It takes 9 seconds to fly across my fingers. Okay, there are 400 of those 9-second periods in an hour, so 400 * 1.2 = 480 miles per hour. Seems slow.
Still bored.
I picked out a nice spot to take a friend for a 3-mile hike. My test hike today showed it was more like 4.5 miles. We'll see how he feels about the longer distance. If it's too far, we'll just park on the other side of the river and only do the north/east loop.
Saw deer, hawks, squirrels, and lots of flowers. No snakes. Knee did pretty good; I think I might try 6 miles next solo hike.
Feeling pretty conservative about my knee, so went hiking with a buddy who recently had hip replacement surgery. Just 3 miles, which suits us both perfectly. And both of us feel more comfortable not being solo.
Por ahora.
#hiking
One of the programmers at work has been building a rubber band ball for a while. It's remarkably heavy. I think it's going to reach a point very soon where the bands we scavenge from the incoming mail aren't going to fit. Even my celery contributions will have problems.
They grow up so fast.
After ending up on crutches for a week after my last two hikes, I took a much more limited 6 mile (~10km) walk today. The knee did fine and it felt SO GOOD to be outside.
You know how it is to turn a corner and find yourself in a field of flowers? To walk through grassland one minute and be in dark woods right after? To have a nice trail, then find yourself bushwhacking when the trail disappears? All in one glorious day? Then you know how good it was.
